Financial reform clears Senate

The Senate on Thursday gave final approval to a broad rewrite of the nation’s financial regulatory system, handing President Barack Obama his second major legislative victory and setting off a scramble to implement a 2,300-page bill that affects all corners of economy.

By a tighter margin than either party predicted months ago, the Senate voted 60 to 39 to send the bill to the president, who is expected to sign it into law at a public ceremony in the coming days.

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Democrats hailed the measure as historic in scope and importance, setting up a new consumer protection bureau and a regulatory framework aimed at preventing and detecting the systemic risks to the economy that caused the financial collapse in 2008.

But before the bill could even make it through the Senate, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) was already talking about rescinding it.

"It ought to be repealed,” Boehner told reporters. “The financial reform bill is ill-conceived. I think it is going to make credit harder for the American people to get.”

Democrats went into overdrive to highlight Boehner’s remarks, sending multiple releases to reporters using his statement as fodder to paint Republicans as Wall Street apologists.

The regulatory overhaul vote broke down largely along party lines, drawing support from just three Republicans — Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Susan Collins of Maine and Olympia Snowe of Maine. Only one member of the Democratic Caucus, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), voted against the bill, arguing it would fail to prevent another financial crisis. The seat of the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) has not yet been filled.

“This is a major undertaking, one that is historic in its proportions, that is an attempt to set in place the structure that would allow us to minimize the problems in the future,” said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.). “I regret that I cannot give you your job back, put retirement money back in your account. What I can do is see to it that we never, ever again have to go through what this nation has been through.”

But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the bill would do little to address the root causes of the economic crisis — namely, the lending practices of housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — that nearly brought down the American economy almost two years ago.

McConnell described the measure as a “a bill that was meant to rein in Wall Street’s biggest banks but which is now supported by some of Wall Street’s biggest banks and opposed by small community banks in my state. A bill that’s meant to help the economy but which is widely expected to stifle growth and kill more jobs in the middle of a deep recession.”

Despite the last-minute discord, the vote gives the White House a big political boost after several tough days, during which it has struggled to get out from under a politically loaded comment by press secretary Robert Gibbs. On “Meet the Press,” Gibbs acknowledged that Democrats might lose control of the House in the midterm elections, a statement that inflamed tensions between Congress and the White House.

Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin said Thursday that the department was already moving to implement the bill.